It is often useful for computer users to store data in external data storage. For example, a computer user may wish to backup data such that it may be recovered in the event of a disk failure. Computer users may also store data on external data storage devices that are accessible by more than one user for collaboration on data files. External data storage may provide a single storage point which is accessible my many devices, such as by a desktop computer, a laptop or other portable computer, a tablet computing device, a personal data assistant (PDA) or smartphone, or the like.
Several types of external data storage devices exist. Data may be stored on a flash memory drives, Secure Digital (SD) cards, external hard drive devices, network attached data storage devices, network accessible Redundant Array of Accessible Disk (RAID) devices, and cloud storage devices. Several other external data storage devices exist. Additionally, some data may be communicated to and stored on network accessible servers, such as email servers, and the like. Additionally, some systems may be configured for data redundancy by copying or otherwise synchronizing data from a local data storage device to an external data storage device, such as a local drive on another device.
Security is often a concern for external data storage. Some systems may be configured to encrypt data before sending it to the external data storage device. Generally such systems are preprogrammed, or preconfigured to encrypt data before sending it to the external data storage device. Such configuration is typically embedded within the application generating the data. In other embodiments, specific data sets designated for external storage are encrypted by the user prior to being transmitted to the external data storage. In some situations, encryption may be applied to the external data storage device once the data has been transmitted. Such systems are generally not sufficiently secure because the encryption keys may be held by more than one party. For example, if data is stored in a cloud storage device and then encrypted, the cloud storage service provider typically has access to the encryption keys.
It may also be useful to compress data transmitted to the external data storage so that space utilization is minimized. Compression is typically handled by the user. For example, the user may compress certain specified files or folders using a data compression utility. Once the files or folders are compressed by the user, they may be transferred to the external data storage device. Prior methods are typically cumbersome and require repeated user intervention.